Pray That Seether Finds Tighter Material

Too soft core too often best describes "Nobody Praying For Me", the latest from Seether's "Isolate and Medicate" release. I'm not putting the song down so much as I'm insisting there's not enough juice under the hood to justify spending too much time with it. Shaun Morgan's got plenty on the lyric sheet to suggest his band would be better off if he put heightened feeling behind the words. You'd best put the kiddies to bed right now 'cause it's about to get bone chilling. Is there a world record for most dispiriting references in one verse? I nominate Seether due to how it opens the wrapping paper on any and every forlorn reference you could imagine. I'll run through these piece by piece. See how many you can digest before waterworks become inevitable. If you're not up for being made to feel marginalized I'd exit the room at this juncture. We open with warmth personified in "I'm a whisper lost upon wind." We work down this path to meet up with "I'm the ember that will burn you down." How delightful. Picking up the pace we sojourn along to "I'm the water that will drown you." Not my preferred out clause from planet Earth but that's one homosapien's opinion. Are you in a fetal ball yet? Then you won't mind "I'm a star that's just a black hole now." You aren't going to get much uplift going forward, believe you me. However, what you do get is harrowing word craft. Shaun doesn't bring along an intensity to match the emotional exhaustion on the page. This common theme within his band's playing pops up constantly. For example Shaun doesn't crackle and pop much on guitar. Ditto Dale Stewart's bass. "Nobody Praying For Me" desperately wants to say something profound but misses the mark. One of the many classifications Seether falls under is alternative metal. Would that Seether roared with the braggadoccio that's metal's ace in the hole. You don't get that impression here. John Humphrey doesn't put his back into the drum kit quite the way the material warrants. "Nobody Praying For Me" suffers because of that. In the second verse Shaun needs some love for coining the sentence "'Cause if I stand up, I'll break my bones and everybody loves to see a fall unfold." Firstly I count as one member of everybody and I don't love it but I digress. It's a visually engaging piece of self-expression. In verse three he assumes the guises of fungus and a lizard. How undeniably charming. He's also the bullet in a loaded gun. NRA fans rejoice. I'm most disappointed in how laid back the guitar playing is when righteous chest beating would serve the situation far better. If you're going to load a lyric sheet with emotionally charged content you'd better bring the instrumental know how to match. There's unrealized potential under the hood. Too bad "Nobody Praying For Me" sounds content to scratch the surface rather than go deep. We'd all be the benefactors of a richer listening experience if Seether put pedal to their metal by showing a little mettle. "Nobody Praying For Me" comes off as too far gone for holistic healing.